Audiobooks Saved My Marriage

Okay, that may be overstating it a bit.

But seriously, my husband has discovered audiobooks, and it’s been an exciting thing. I know, I know, we are a little behind the times. Better late than never!

I’m not an audio person myself. I find it really hard to concentrate just by listening. I’m best at it in the car, when I have nothing else to do but drive and listen. At other times, though, I find it hard to listen to an audio track or even watch a YouTube video for more than five minutes at time. My mind wanders, either thinking over what I’ve heard, or getting distracted by other to-do items. Suddenly I find I haven’t been paying attention for the past 15 minutes and I’ve lost the thread of the story or the thing I was trying to learn about.

(This results in a lot of attempts at home repair after watching only the first three minutes of a YouTube video, which has led to a lot of Tales of Woe around here, but that’s another story.)

My husband is much better at listening, though, especially when the book is good. He’s a tech guy too, so he was able to figure out how to get some app on his phone that lets him get audiobooks from the library, which seems like pure witchcraft to me, no matter how many times he tries to explain it (and my mind goes wandering off three minutes in).

Recently he listened to The Blind Side by Michael Lewis, read by Stephen Hoye, who does such an amazing job. I heard snippets during our long drive to visit family over the holidays – that book kept us happy and engrossed in the car, and gave us oodles to talk about during stretch breaks. I also caught bits when he’d put it on while doing the dishes after dinner – hours of dish doing, plus entertainment, all set to the dulcet tones of Stephen Hoye. Delightful and productive! It’s been good times.

Now that he’s done with that one, it’s on to Moneyball, also by Micheal Lewis – and again, we have much to discuss, plus associated reading to do, and a movie version to watch. Even though he’s technically the one listening, it’s given us a whole new world of shared subjects and interesting talks.

I never thought I’d want one of my books to be made into an audiobook, given my complete inability to actually listen to one. But now I kind of see the appeal – and I have to admit, having someone awesome like say, Cate Blanchett read your novel (a girl can dream, right?) would be so amazing. Let’s put that on the pipe dream list, shall we?

Do you like audiobooks? Do you go back and forth between print and audio, or do you strongly prefer one or the other? I’m curious now to see how much of a mass audience they have.

Comments

Well, Lynn, I’m afraid I’m in the “Can’t Do Audiobooks” camp. Like you, my mind wanders elsewhere when listening to them, and as for in the car – more like in the ditch! It seems I concentrate more on the audio book than the road, which is weird, given my first comment.
I hope I am more of the exception than the rule, since I think “Ten At the Wedding” with or without Cate Blanchette, would make a fabulous audio book!

I love audio books!! I must admit, I’m a terrible audio-learner, and I can’t just listen to any old audio book. Anything fast-paced or exciting is out. Terry Brooks is a great author for me to listen to for three reasons. 1. his writing, even in action scenes, is quite descriptive. I can tune out for a sentence or two and not miss much. 2. His audio books are read by amazing voice actors, and every character has his/her own voice so I can tell who’s speaking – it’s hard to remember sometimes that it’s the same man reading all the character lines, especially the female characters. 3. Terry Brooks has dozens of books, and hundreds of hours worth of audio books. I won’t run out any time soon.
I’ve never been able to read more than one book at a time unless its one fiction and one non-fiction. Oh, and I can add in a book that i’m reading out loud to the kids. I can now add an audio book to the mix, and not get confused. Somehow, the audio book that I’m listening to is separate in my head from the print one I’m reading.
Here’s a question. is it cheating for a kid to listen to an audio book version of his / her book for English class? Does reading the paper copy yield more / better learning?